The Life

I

the end

Hanging the miniature ornaments

on the miniature tree with the girl

while the baby sleeps behind a sheet

of white noise and uncorrupted

darkness. Ow, she says each time

the needles prick her fingers. Ow.

There is no way the little tree can

wear it all, can bear it all; its branches

begin to droop under the cheer, angels

mostly. Now the girl goes to bed

reluctantly, falls asleep instantly.

Now the night comes full on. And so,

in this way, the Christ child will be

born again, his animal life will begin

again, the story will begin again, his

tiny mouth will curl toward his mother’s

breast, strong mouth of the newborn,

the part that comes knowing what

to do. They will meet for the first time.

She’ll have those breasts until the end

of her life. He’ll have that mouth until

the end of his.

the life

The toilet flows and flows

and nothing stops it

so I call a plumber but then

it stops on its own

so I call back and say it stopped

and cancel. I have these

little ideas for making my life

a marginally better life.

I can’t think of one

right now. Otherwise, I find

as soon as I come within range

the spirit retreats. Before

long, it never existed. As with

a celebrity, I will always

have to remember meeting

the spirit, though the spirit will

never have to remember meeting

me. Based on conversations

I’ve overheard, I think

my children believe the soul

is an organ of the body.

I know they believe in heaven.

I hear them talk about it.

But theirs is a heaven of their own

making, a place where you can

do whatever you want, eat

ice cream for dinner, play

video games with a God who will

drive you to CVS—yes, right now,

put on your shoes—for a new box

of Lucky Charms, a God

who will give you full possession

of his Apple ID. Theirs

is a heaven with no elsewhere,

a heaven with no hell.

For them there are three times:

the beforelife, which is nothing,

the life, and the afterlife, which is

everything. Who knows? Maybe

they’re right. If I washed

my face and brushed my teeth

and took out my contacts

right after putting my kids to sleep

rather than waiting until

before bed, my evenings would be

better and I’d go to sleep earlier.

There. You see, I can’t stop having

the smallest possible ideas. This

is the life. After a day of devout

silence, the toilet starts up again.

This time I’m waiting to see

if it’s serious.

poem on the inside

Writing in the silent

part of the morning, before

the baby and his toys

wake up and begin

their strange chatter,

the lawn mower’s insipid

giggle, the cell phone’s

hello and goodbye.

The only sound now is that

of the cat licking his fur

behind me on the bed.

In the short time after

we bought this house

but before we moved into it,

I’d sometimes drive by.

I’d stop. I’d park in the carport

and sneak around back

and I’d squint into the windows,

almost certain I knew what

our lives would be like

once we lived inside.

cold

Wind through the night, cold

wind to blow the dried skins

away, maybe. We woke to find

the thousand yellow leaves

of the pecan tree covering

the backyard. What is

the meaning of this? the villain

in the show my children

are watching asks, his face to

the heavens. I think he’s going to

turn good, my son says.

And I say, Hope so, because

I know how much he loves a bad guy

who just needs one experience

of goodness to turn good

himself—good again, finally

good, his evil so simple, just pain

and fear and shame, evil that begs

to be thwarted, to be finished,

solved, dissolved, like sugar

in water, no more next time, there

won’t be a next time, because

the curse is lifted, the lesion healed,

the disease cured. We thought

he was dead in the end, but then

no—look, he’s breathing, he’s

alive, he lived. Any of us

could be turned inside out

like that, then right side in—any

one of us could suddenly run

a finger over the tender spot,

the crack that could widen then

break apart cleanly, moved by

love, destroyed by love, and replaced

by love, a force so strong, a wind

that blows cleanly through

the darkest night, a wind that blows

the dried skins away, until we rise

again, ready to account

for the damage we’ve done.

the beast is coming

is what my daughter

said all through the first

part of the song, where

Belle is singing about how

surprised she is to be falling

in love with a beast: The beast

is coming, right, Mommy?

What a story. He is a beast,

a true beast, with fur and

haunches and claws that slash,

no metaphor, yellow teeth, very

bad attitude, yet a woman

still finds a way to love him.

It was alarming how easily

my girl gave over. He’s not so

grumpy anymore, she said,

and look, he took a bath.

after the ascension

No one wanted to look at each other.

No one wanted to speak, to be

the first to speak. But we had to.

Walking back to Jerusalem, for instance,

we had to decide where we were going.

There was no one to follow home

anymore. That day and the day after.

Waking, it was the first thought. This

is the feeling of rising with faith alone.

We had to learn it like a skill. We had

to come to understand this would always

be the first thought. Things hadn’t

worked out the way we’d thought

they would. Eventually, we began dying.

Funny to say it now, but some of us

wondered, would it happen to us, too?

But of course it would happen. This was

the very promise we’d lived by.

one way

When I quit smoking it was only because

I’d come to understand without a doubt that

I was unable to quit smoking. I knew I could

not do it. I knew that if I wanted to not smoke

I’d have to maintain the specific circumstances

that would keep me from failing to quit

smoking, those specific circumstances being

that I not smoke. And it worked, which still

amazes me. When our daughter was a baby

and was learning to put herself to sleep

and was crying and crying—well, after a while

I would need to go into her room and make it

stop—I just need to make it stop—and the longer

it went on, the stronger was my need to make it

stop. No, my husband said. She’s wrestling

with the devil, my husband said. And we must

let her win. Now I pray, when I pray, understanding

I cannot pray—okay, fine—and also understanding

the only way to quit not praying is to enter the arena

of prayer, lay hands upon the devil—my devil—and

pin it down as long as I can, then a while after that.

first

There is a holiness in exhaustion,

is what I keep telling myself,

filling out the form so my TA gets paid,

then making copies of it on the hot

and heaving machine, writing

Strong start! on a pretty bad poem.

And then the children: the baby’s

mouth opening, going for the breast,

the girl’s hair to wash tonight

and then comb so painstakingly

in the tub while conditioner drips

in slick globs onto her shoulders

and her discipline chart flaps in the air

conditioner at school, taped

to a filing cabinet, longing for

stickers. My heart is so giant

this evening, like one of those moons

so full it’s disturbing, so full that

if you see it when you’re getting out

of the car you have to go inside the house

and make someone else come out

and see it for themselves. I want

everything, I admit. I want

a clean heart. I want the children

to sleep and the drought to end.

I want the rain to come down hard—

It’s supposed to monsoon,is what

Naomi said, driving away this morning,

and she was right. It’s monsooning.

Still I want more. Even as the streets

are washed clean and then begin

to flood. Even though the man came

again today to check the rat traps

and said he bet we’d catch the rat

within twenty-four hours. We still haven’t

caught the rat, so I’m working

at the table with my legs folded up

beneath me. I want to know

what is holy—I do. But first I want

the rat to die. I am thirsty for that

death and will drink deeply of that

victory, the thwack of the trap’s

hard plastic jaw, and I will rush

to see the evidence no matter how

gruesome, folding my body over

the washing machine to see the thing

crushed there, much smaller than

I imagined it’d be, the strawberry

large in its mouth.

how has motherhood changed the way you write?

The baby sleeps

and cries and sleeps

and cries in fifteen-

minute increments

for three hours

and wakes, unrested,

wanting something,

something I cannot

give him. Meanwhile

the sheets hold their

famous crumple,

their human scent.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen

the enchilada casseroles

wait in the freezer

for their big moment,

though casseroles

cannot wait

because casseroles

have no desires.

Look at the oranges

in the white bowl

on the table. Suddenly

they’ve been there

for weeks and have

hardened, been

rendered inedible,

despite appearances.

Suddenly a smell

comes strongly

from a hidden place

in the backyard

and we cannot

discover it and will

never discover it.

All we can do is say

Something died

out thereevery time

we go in or out the back

door.Suddenly it’s deep

winter and the baby

has produced one crude

tooth and the trees

in front of the house

across the street

are bare of leaves

and the people we knew

have moved back

to Houston and the house

has been on the market

for going on three months.

One day, the blinds were

open all day and all

night, the empty house

emitting light, staged

by experts, soft

throws folded over

armchairs. Still,

no takers.

the parable of the gifts

My son can’t keep the story straight.

Is he going to come into my room?

he asks his sister warily of Santa Claus.

He is so young he routinely needs to be

reminded what to believe. Santa is real;

aliens are not real. Aliens could be real,

my daughter says. Yeah, I guess you’re

right, I say.And Jesus Christ is real,

she says.Zeus wasn’t real. Zeus was

a myth. But Jesus Christ was a real man

who walked upon this earth though

he was the Son of God. So I guess

she’smade it to the New Testament

in the 100 Bible Stories for Childrenshe bought

last week with her tooth fairy money.

Sure you want that one?her father asked

at the checkout, and as an answer

she held the book tightly to her chest.

God, sometimesI can see the privacy

forming around her, like faint light

or like the shimmer of oil as it heats

in the pan, and it is a great mystery

to me, and it is painful to me, because

it is lonely to be a person and what she is

telling us with her 100 Bible stories

is that she is a person. God, sometimes I step

into this life like stepping into a room

I can’t remember why I entered, and for

a moment I see nothing—I can see nothing,

I can seeit, a space in front of me that is not yet

filled, that could be filled, and will be filled.

It’s simple and elegant, without needs, just

large enough, and sometimes I understand

that’s the space my babies came from, were

pulled from wailing, and the space

my grandmother returned to, finally, after

her long and painful illness, but suddenly, too,

that morning, with the scent of orange

Jell-O still present in the room, she slipped

away, was pulled, perhaps, and I imagine

that’s the space I’ll enter, too, when I die,

and it’s not unpleasant to think of it,

an ultimate privacy, though thinking

of my children with spaces of their own

into which they will someday disappear

is unbearable. It is unbearable, and though

it is unbearable, I bear it. That is the agreement

into which I entered when they arrived.

I think maybe I should read ahead to see

how the book handles the Crucifixion.

Or maybe I should just hide the book

and pretend I didn’t. I don’t know. I haven’t

seen it. Maybe the tooth fairy will bring you

more money and you can buy something else.

Because, God, I am not prepared to let

my daughter know how the main character

of her story dies. Not yet. She, who answers

her brother so kindly, with such perfect

honesty, saying, No, the gifts just appear

under the tree; it’s magic, though surely

by now she only pretends to believe.

the student

I wish I were as talented

at anything as he is

at pulling Derrida into

a conversation, any

conversation, no matter

what we’re discussing:

Derrida. Even once

when he was telling me

why he didn’t have

the assignment, even then

after a long and aerobic

journey we arrived

at Derrida, his white

hair and elegant European

ideas, and it felt good—

I admit it felt good to finally

arrive there—ah, bonjour,

Monsieur Derrida!—

because at least I knew

then where I was, even

if it wasn’t where

I wanted to be. To pretend,

Derrida said, I actually

do the thing: I have therefore

only pretended to pretend.

I pretend sometimes. Other

times all I do is pretend.

I’ve created gods this way

and on occasion I’ve tied

those gods together

like they do bedsheets

in a movie, and I’ve escaped

the high tower of myself

this way. I’ve made it

to solid ground this way.

I’ve landed on the earth.

And each time I’ve been

sure I’ve actually done

the thing, but when I look up,

the gods are gone.